The Everything Theodore Roosevelt Book (22 page)

Theodore Roosevelt and Rough Riders atop San Juan Hill, 1898

Wood and TR set up a training camp at San Antonio, Texas, to equip and prepare their unit for combat. They did so knowing that their chances of getting into battle were slim. Even though the army had attracted large numbers of recruits, not all of the units to which they were assigned were fit for battle. The Rough Riders had an advantage: Wood was an experienced war-fighter and a Medal of Honor recipient. That medal added a bit of luster to the Rough Riders’ reputation.

By the end of May 1898 the Rough Riders were as ready for battle as they were ever going to be. They shipped off to Tampa, Florida, and left from there for Santiago de Cuba on June 13, minus a critical element of their cavalry equipment: their horses.

No Horsing Around

The War Department was in such haste to get troops to Cuba that it did not pay enough attention to the logistical side of the operation. The only way the horses could have gotten to Cuba was by swimming. So the Rough Riders arrived in the battle zone without their horses, which reduced them from a cavalry unit to an infantry regiment. That did not matter once they got into combat, as long as their leader had a mount.

TR was the only Rough Rider who had a horse when the unit reached Cuba. But he did not have a dress uniform, which he did not need for combat purposes anyway. He had only his service uniform—the only uniform he had in his short stint in the army.

The Rough Riders may have been better off without their horses. Their steeds were not heavy enough for cavalry use, and many were unbroken. Half the horses bucked when riders mounted them or, according to TR, “possessed some other of the amiable weaknesses incident to horse life on the great ranches.” Some of the animals were unmanageable, even for Rough Riders.

The Battle of Las Guasimas

Once the Rough Riders arrived in Cuba, they joined the Fifth Corps, a well-trained and well-equipped unit comprised of a combination of volunteers and regular army soldiers. It was not long before they were pressed into battle at Las Guasimas, a village not too far from Santiago. That was a prelude to the Battle of San Juan Hill.

The battle at Las Guasimas exposed a weakness in TR’s unit. The men were not used to walking or to the hot, sultry Cuban weather. As a result, only 500 Rough Riders participated in the fighting.

TR remained cool under hostile fire. He was finally getting the chance to test his mettle in a war, one that he had agitated for so vociferously. He was not entirely sure of what he should do at times as the fighting raged.

“I was still very much in the dark as to where the main body of the Spanish forces were, or exactly what lines the battle was following, and was very uncertain what I ought to do,” he recalled. “But I knew it could not be wrong to go forward, and I thought I would find Wood and then see what he wished me to do.” TR recognized that some advice was needed.

What happened at the Battle of Las Guasimas?

The American forces sustained several casualties at the Battle of Las Guasimas. Eight Rough Riders were killed; thirty-four were wounded. The number of wounded did not include two or three whose wounds were so minor that they were not reported. Altogether, of the 964 American soldiers in the battle, sixteen were killed and fifty-two wounded.

“I was in a mood to cordially welcome guidance, for it was most bewildering to fight an enemy whom one so rarely saw,” he concluded. With the help of Colonel Wood and his able officers, TR got through the battle, which allowed the Americans to continue toward Santiago. In the field, Wood was promoted to Brigadier General and TR was made Colonel of the Rough Riders. More fighting—and a bit of glory for TR—lay ahead.

Battle of Santiago

At first the strategy of the American forces at the Battle of Santiago was to drive their Spanish opposition off the high ground by firing at them from fairly static positions along a line below the hills. TR saw the folly in that and advocated a charge up the hills.

He ordered the Rough Riders to attack. Other troops joined them. The Battle of Santiago intensified as they rushed up toward the enemy positions.

The Battle of San Juan Hill is somewhat of a misnomer. TR refers to his part as a battle at Kettle Hill, and historians sometimes call it the Battle of San Juan Heights. Collectively, the fight there is known as the Battle of San Juan Hill.

TR led the charge on his horse, Little Texas. Since he was the only man there on horseback, he reached the crest of Kettle Hill before the infantry soldiers. There, he nearly ran into a wire fence, at which point he dismounted and parted with Little Texas. He did not expect to see his horse again—or anything else. A couple of bullets had scraped Little Texas, and one had grazed TR in the elbow.

The charge up the hill had turned into a contest among members of the Rough Riders and other units to see who could reach the top first. The issue was never truly settled. What mattered was who won the battle. That was indisputably the Americans.

TR noted:

The first guidons planted [on the hill] were those of the three New Mexican troops, G, E, and F, of my regiment … On the extreme right of the hill, at the opposite end from where we struck it … men of the Ninth were first up. Each of the five captains was firm in the belief that his troop was first up
.

The chaos of battle continued. TR noted, “It is astonishing what a limited area of vision and experience one has in the hurly-burly of a battle.” At one point he led a charge on Spanish positions only to learn that he was virtually alone. His men had not heard his order. He returned to his troops, chided them for not following, reissued his order, and led the charge once again.

More Troops to Lead

TR was no longer commanding only Rough Riders as the fighting continued. During the confusion of battle, unit integrity faded. Members of individual units broke up and merged with one another. TR was leading an amalgamation of troops; all followed him in pursuit of the Spanish troops.

The Rough Riders regiment employed 490 men at the Battle of San Juan Hill. Eighty-nine were killed or wounded. That was the highest number suffered by any U.S. cavalry regiment engaged in the battle. The fighting was more intense than it had been at Las Guasimas, which resulted in the Rough Riders’ high casualty count.

Gradually, the fighting ended and the Americans won a significant victory at the San Juan hills. Once again, they paid a steep price for their effort.

The Aftermath of the Battle

Two controversies arose after the Battle of San Juan Hill ended. One involved returning the Rough Riders to the United States immediately. The other was a Medal of Honor recommendation for Roosevelt.

On August 3, 1898, the commander of the U.S. troops in Cuba, Major General William R. Shafter, held a meeting with the medical and commanding officers of the Fifth Corps at Santiago. Shafter read a letter from Secretary of War Alger ordering him to move the troops to the interior of Cuba. The order ran contrary to the officers’ wishes. They wanted their troops returned to the United States to alleviate the risk of tropical diseases such as malaria and yellow fever.

TR expressed his concerns to General Shafter in a letter explaining why the troops should be sent home. In the letter, TR wrote, “I write only because I cannot see our men, who have fought so bravely and who have endured extreme hardship and danger so uncomplainingly, go to destruction without striving so far as lies in me to avert a doom as fearful as it is unnecessary and undeserved.”

TR called malaria the “Cuban fever.” It affected him long after his return to the United States. He mentioned in a May 2, 1905, letter to his son Kermit that, while on a hunting trip in Colorado, “I have been a little knocked out by the Cuban fever. Up to that time I was simply in splendid shape.” He may have left Cuba, but Cuba never left him.

Shafter handed the letter to a correspondent for the Associated Press. The resulting publicity upset Secretary Alger and may have played a role in the subsequent denial of TR’s Medal of Honor recommendation. Once the troops returned to the United States, action on approving the Medal of Honor languished—for the next 103 years.